Marian Gamwell

(Antonia) Marian Gamwell OBE (28 July 1891 – 13 May 1977) was a United Kingdom volunteer ambulance driver and commanding officer of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY). She served with her sister Hope Gamwell during World War I and they then ran a farm in what is now Zambia. They both became pilots. They returned to the UK for World War Two and Marian commanded the FANYs after a row with the ATS. After the war they returned to Zambia before retiring to Jersey.

Life Gamwell was born in West Norwood to Frederick Robison Gamwell and Marian Antonia Bankart in 1891. Her sister (Anne) Hope Gamwell was born in 1893. She and her sister's education was at Roedean School and after that they taught themselves mechanics by taking their mothers car to bits. In 1910 Marian tried to study architecture but she was rejected because she was a woman. She did work with animals before going to Saskatchewan where she worked in a mixed farm until she returned to the UK in 1912. The Scottish Women's Hospital that was established there operated throughout the war, but in May 1915 the two sisters volunteered to join the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. Their mother returned to her home in Wales where she established a home for wounded soldiers at Aber Artro Hall near Llanbedr. Before she left France, her mother left funds that enabled an ambulance and a mobile bath Daimler to be purchased for the first FANY hospital, which is where they and the vehicles were based, at the hospital they call "Lamarck" in Calais. Gwynne-Vaughan held the role to 1941. Ellis swallowed her pride and become a deputy-director at the ATS throughout the war. Whilst Marian took over the leadership of the remaining FANYs and her sister, Hope, took a special interest in the FANYs who ran the Special Operations Executive.

After the war the two sisters returned to Zambia where they reopened their farm. They grew crops that were not coffee. They were there until 1964 when they decided to retire together to live on Jersey. Marian and Hope Gamwell died on Jersey.